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Jahi McMath, 13, died after a routine tonsillectomy, according to doctors at Children's Hospital Oakland who declared McMath brain-dead on Thursday. The coroner's office was set to remove her body on Tuesday.

I was, frankly, quite delighted to see that my former student Chai Feldblum, who grew up to be one of the nation's leading scholars and lawyers on issues of equality, especially for women and LGBT Americans, was confirmed to serve a full term on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Chai, a longtime law professor at Georgetown University, was first appointed to the EEOC in 2009 and then was a recess appointment in 2010. Her term expired last July, and her re-nomination has been languishing along with the nominations of more than a hundred other highly qualified people for executive ...

December 17, 2013|
By Susan Estrich
Political commentator
|Other Views

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., are about as opposite politically as two people can be. Nonetheless, last week they joined forces to introduce a bill to repeal the federal requirement to blend corn ethanol into gasoline.

Lately, I've been hearing from readers who are among the million Californians who had private health care plans, received cancellation notices and now have to buy new coverage. Some figured that if they signed up with their old providers - Blue Shield or Anthem - they'd have access to the same doctors and hospitals. Not quite. In Marin, San Francisco and Alameda counties, new plans in Covered California exchanges don't include doctors and hospitals in other counties.

The developers who wanted to build 8 Washington in San Francisco spent seven years lobbying City Hall - winning approval from the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors - only to watch opponents kill the project by putting a successful measure on the November ballot.

"The bottom line is this law is working and will work into the future," President Barack Obama said of his signature Affordable Care Act on Tuesday. It would be easier to believe the president if he hadn't said in 2009, "If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too."

The "knockout game" - and the media underreporting of it - combines the breakdown of the family with the media's condescending determination to serve as a public relations bureau for blacks. The "game" is a dare in which a young man - all the perps appear to be male people of color, mostly blacks - tries to literally knock out an innocent bystander with one blow. Both National Public Radio and The New York Times say these reports of the "knockout game" being widespread are overblown and do not represent a trend. Really?

President Barack Obama inserted a jarring note in his speech to the annual Prayer Breakfast by insulting Christians with an inappropriate reference to the Crusades and charging that people "committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."

February 10, 2015|
By PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY
National Columnist
|Other Views

What happened to California's death penalty? There has not been an execution since 2006, when a federal judge ruled against the state's three-drug lethal injection protocol. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld three-drug executions. It didn't matter. Though as candidates Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris - who both personally oppose capital punishment - promised to uphold the law, in real life they've let things slide. Fed up, two men related to murder victims have filed suit to push the state to carry out the law.

This year marks the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie, and in these hard times of tinkle-down economics, we sure could use some of his hard-hitting musical stories and inspired lyrical populism.

I believe that parents should vaccinate their children. Because children are vulnerable, the media have a responsibility to inform parents about the risks involved when they don't vaccinate their children.

"Many people were inconvenienced by the Montgomery bus boycotts. Do you think Rosa Parks should pay restitution for that?" Mollie Costello hectored the Bay Area Rapid Transit board at a recent hearing. Costello is one of the Black Friday 14 - 14 protesters arrested Nov. 28 for shutting down the West Oakland BART station and four of five transit lines for three hours to protest the killing of unarmed black men by police officers.